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Fighting the fear of copyright with the GCU Online UK Copyright Advisor.

Hi, I’m Marion Kelt and I’m the Copyright Advisor at GCU. Over the last year I’ve noticed a rise in the number and types of copyright enquiry. In one way, I’m glad to see this as most of us have a general fear of copyright and licensing issues. They are the elephant in the room, we all know it is there, but nobody wants to admit it exists!

Our team developed an online copyright advisor to help staff and students to quickly answer the most frequently asked questions on commonly used resources. It is available 24-7 to help you with the more straightforward copyright questions. It answers FAQs on seven types of resource:

The design is very plain at present, though we do have plans to improve this in the next version. We aimed to keep our answers as positive as possible, suggesting alternatives rather than forbidding certain actions. Some of the answers can be a bit “wordy”, so we added traffic lights to give you quick visual cues. We also added links where possible, so we link to the licenses we refer to, the library web pages and our own quick copyright glossary.

We would love you to look at the advisor and use it as much as you want. We would welcome your questions and feedback, even if you are pointing out mistakes that may have slipped through the net! You can contact me at copyright@gcu.ac.uk, I’m always happy to chat!